At five o’clock in the morning, just as the dawn was breaking, Donna awoke abruptly. She lay in bed for a second listening. Turning over once more, she let sleep envelop her and was soon back in a dream with her and Georgio and their child. It was a fabulous dream she had dreamt on and off for over fifteen years.

As Donna snuggled down in her bed, Big Paddy Donovon and his henchmen were dragging two men off Donna’s drive and out into the lane. They bundled them into a black Transit van parked on the grassy verge twenty-five yards from Donna’s driveway.

Paddy relieved one of the men of a large brown holdall. Opening it, he took out a small package with a tiny LCD display travel clock attached to it. The men were both wearing ski masks. As they were removed, Paddy and the other men were shocked to see that the men were Chinese.

The one who had had the holdall spoke then. His voice had a thick cockney twang.

‘If I were you I’d let us go now, before this gets out of hand. You have no idea who we’re working for, and believe me when I say, you don’t want to know.’

The words were said matter-of-factly, without emotion. When Paddy crushed the man’s nose with a meaty fist, the other man blanched. Even under his sallow skin, they could all see him whiten.

‘You were sent here by Donald Lewis,’ Paddy snarled. ‘Well, Lewis doesn’t fecking scare me, meladdos. In fact, the man hasn’t been born yet who could scare me, or even make me little heart race.’

Paddy stared at the man who was bleeding profusely everywhere. ‘Was this device for the car?’

The man nodded, holding his hand under his dripping nose.

‘Was it to kill?’

The other man shook his head. ‘There’s only enough there to give a good bang. It’d frighten her, not kill her. Maybe she’d get a few cuts off the windscreen, that’s all.’

Paddy screwed up his eyes in consternation. ‘You said her! You knew this was for a woman, didn’t you? You knew this was for Donna Brunos!’

The men looked at their feet.

Paddy took a deep breath. ‘Get moving, Padraic, we’re off to Manor Park and a little firm I know to teach these two a lesson they won’t forget.’

As the Transit pulled away in the early-morning light, the youngest of the Chinese men began to sweat. Everyone knew what was at Manor Park, East London - the crematorium - and when people like Paddy Donovon took you there you rarely, if ever, came out again.

More than a few bodies had gone in with the legitimate stock, never to be seen again.